Tuesday, September 24, 2013

LOEB Assignment - Pet Peeves

Pet Peeves – where do I start? Just kidding, I just don’t
get riled up about a lot of things, but there are one or two things that drive
me nuts as a toy collector.

1.Enemy combatants – or the lack thereof. I get
it. I get it. It is politically incorrect. It took Marx toys, years to make
German and Japanese toy soldiers to go with their combat sets. Maybe time will
tell, but in this modern age of terror, we are just not going to see enemy
combatants for many lines, especially modern toy soldier lines.

Green vs Tan

So here goes.

a.McFarlane Military had seven great series of
modern military figures. Obviously, they weren’t going to make insurgents and
Republican Guard figures. I could imagine the protests at Toys R Us if that
happened. I was excited to see the World War II figures announced, then
re-marketed with Call of Duty. I could definitely see enemy combatants in that
lineup, but once again, that wouldn’t be modern day.

b.Plastic toy soldiers are doing great as a niche
market: Barzso - www.Barzso.com , Conte
Collectibles (www.conteco.com), Toy
Soldiers of San Diego (www.sdsoldiers.com)
but no one wants to do modern toy solders.
Only Armies in Plastic www.armiesinplastic.com
did it, yet there aren’t any enemy combatants. Do we really need one more Civil
War set? 21st Century Toys took a gamble and made the Eastern
Warrior for their 1:18 scale modern sets. I never saw them at Toys R Us, had to
pick them up on Ebay. 21st Century also created Vietnam enemy
combatants for their 1:18 scale Vietnam line. So once again, time will tell.

c.Even some fantasy lines never come out with the
bad guys anymore. As much as I love NECA, some of their products just release
one character (Clash of the Titans). Really, what am I going to do with a
single Perseus figure?

2.The amount of complaining on Toy Collector
forums. I do it too, so I am not exempt. I am just amazed on how granular some
of these complaints get. Luke should have brown hair, not blonde hair, like the
Empire Strikes Back Bespin figure. Really? And I get we shell out our hard
earned money to buy these things and want quality, but do we really need to get
so spun up on minor details. Of course, I am one to talk – the abomination that
was World War Z by Jazwares was atrocious.

3.The “I know if they made figure X, it would sell
out” wisdom. Unless you actually have experience in running a profit and loss
operation, and the time/money it takes to license, design, produce, distribute
a toy, this one drives me nuts. There are tons of figures I wish were made and
haven’t been/will never be made, but simple business models and principles
prevent this from happening. I for one am pissed that Prometheus figures are
now warming the pegs and future series (with great characters) are canceled,
but the fact is, the collector market is a lot smaller than the mom with kids
market. And mom is going to buy/know Spiderman and Ironman, versus Dr.
Elizabeth Shaw.